Monday, August 30, 2010

I just now have internet access for the first time since the rally (story later), so I'm quick-posting the text I've worked up and I'll update this post later with a few refinements and pictures.

I got on the bus as one of the last people, and there was one seat for me in the back. I had planned to work with friend and former co-worker Doug, but we had to split up.

It worked out ok. I ended up sitting with a great family - Mom, Dad, a teenage girl and her older sister -- a nurse in KC, and their grandmother -- who as it turns out is Chris Loesch's aunt. Which is probably too obscure for most people out there, but he is Dana Loesch's husband. I think I've made some new friends.

It took 19 hours to get there -- about 4 more than we'd planned, as I was on one of 4 busses organized by our 9.12 group founder and we were picking a few people up along the way. We started to walk to the Metro Rail station 0.7 miles away and we were immediately assaulted by a barrage of street vendors, hawking shirts, buttons and American and Gadsden Flags. The only items that were appropriate for the rally would have been the American Flags. I didn't see anyone patronizing any of them as I walked by. I later saw one guy on the Mall getting a ticket, I assume for vending without a license.

We got to the metro station we were supposed to embark from ... and it was packed. Some people were telling us the Washington Monument was 4 miles east. A few people had gotten through to the Metro, but a lot of the rest of us decided to hoof it -- meaning we missed about the first hour of the rally.

But I didn't really care so much about that... I was there to be another face in the crowd. Sure I wanted to hear some of what was going on on stage, but I was there to be a part of it.

So we got to walk through some pretty neighborhoods, and right by the Supreme Court and the Capitol, down to the Washingon Monument. Along the way, there were people -- and you could usually tell who was headed to the rally by their clothing -- a lot of red, white, and blue or shirts identifying which group they were with... but it wasn't throngs.

A little bit west of the Washington Monument was the stage for Al Sharpton's event. There was a big banner of Martin Luther king and a couple of quotes from his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. They were playing the speech over loudspeakers. As I listened to the words, I turned to Chris and said "Listen to this. It's beautiful. And so different from the tone and rhetoric of Al Sharpton." But, we were already late, and we hustled on.

Along the way, we had run across a few people with statements to make. I snapped a shot of a guy on a street corner with a sign that read "Freedom without socialism is priviledge and injustice. Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality." Never mind that Socialism with Freedom is impossible without the socialism being completely voluntary -- that is, private charity. I'm sure he thought he was being intellectual.

It's a mile from the Capitol to the Washington Monument, and a mile from the monument to the Lincoln Memorial. Some of us were starting to think maybe it would be a disappointing crowd. But when we popped over the hill at the Monument, those fears vanished. There were people from the monument to the Lincoln Memorial. Lots of people. Easily half a million.

We wanted to see how many people were in and beyond the trees and just how thick the crowd was, so Chris, Penny, and I along with a couple of others struck out for the north side of the reflection pond.

The back of the crowd near the monument was sparse. The closer you got to the WWII Memorial at the head of the reflecting pool the more packed it got. From the WWII Memorial to the stage, it was solid people, packed in.

We went by one group of what looked like some very young college students with a sign that said "Teabaggers Go Away!". Everybody was ignoring them, and they looked a little sheepish. They weren't getting the reaction they probably wanted. Another guy was mores subtle. He was trying to get reactions to use. His sign read "If you could tell pres. Obama 1 thing, what would it be?" I heard him talking with the people he was with and he repeated several times, "about 95% 'quit' and 5% 'thank you'". Well, no surprise there. If you are against the President's policies, you might just want him to quit. I can't remember which rabble rouser/counter-protester said it, but I overheard "Take my picture, I wanna be on a blog." I'm pretty sure it was that last one. I do have his picture. I may put it here after I post this.
The area between the pond and the sidewalk was full of standing people. Then the little hill in the trees to the north was full as well. There were still people streaming in from the Northwest making their way through a pretty decent crowd in those areas as well. There was a pretty decent crowd behind the stage on the steps of the Linconl memorial as well.

I didn't even get to the other side until the rally was over. We stayed on the North about 1/4 the way down the reflection pool and listened to the rally from there. I could occasionally see one of the screens, and my brain kept assuming that the stage was just out of sight to the west... but it was still 3/8 mile away.

Glenn Beck had about the last hour of the rally after some awards handed out by Sarah Palin and a talk from Alveda King and some singing mixed in.

Glenn's speech was very good. I'll have to go over it again ... I'm sure it's on YouTube, but I have an insider subscription and I'll probably get it there when I get a chance. In the latter half of it, he introduced the new Black Robe Brigade ... 240 preachers and ministers and priests on stage who agreed to basically emphasize personal responsibility and personal salvation from the pulpit. That latter half of the speech was more peppered with Religious Revival tones... which I have absolutely no problems with.

Chris, Penny, and the rest of our small grouplet headed afterward to the Lincoln Memorial. I actually got butterflies walking up the steps. I mentioned this to Chris, and he said "yeah, me too." It was packed, but we did get in. We only had an hour and a half before we were all supposed to meet at the Washington Monument to head back to the busses, so we didn't really have time to see much else. I saw both the Vietnam War Memorial and the Korean War Memorial off to the sides, but we'll have to go back some time when there aren't a half a million people wandering around. It was, as one might expect, a zoo. But an ordered, clean, and polite zoo.

Except for a few people. On our way out we ran across a guy with a large sign calling Beck, Palin, Limbaugh, and other various names and he was shouting at us on the way buy. The only complete thought I heard as we went by was "I would be proud to go to jail for slapping Glenn Beck's face". He was also shouting George Bush and idiot, but was having problems pronouncing the word "idiot". I WISH I had thought to take video, I would have slapped it on YouTube in an instant. I hope SOMEBODY did. We were in a bit of a hurry to catch our busses at the time. I didn't see it, but there was another man tapping a club on his hand that we walked by. And later, a young lady from my bus said a man had shouted at her, calling her a "hate monger" and tried to spit on her. She said she responded, "*I'm* a hate monger? *You're* trying to spit on me!" and continued walking.

Before we struck out for the busses from the Washington Monument, columns of what I assume were Al Sharpton people went marching across the Mall crosswise.... making sure to cross the people leaving our rally, chanting, carrying signs, and I'm guessing trying to provoke a reaction from us. Nobody was biting. It was a bit odd, there'd be a group go across.... nothing for a long while, then another large group ... this happened 3 or 4 times over the course of an hour or so. I was starting to wonder if it wasn't the same group marching across multiple times.

Without any prompting from me, my young friend on the bus (who avoided the spit mentioned above) told me that she was watching them. They would march across, hurry around the other side, switch signs, and march again. I thought I heard them chanting something about "Glenn Beck", but she said they were chanting "Fired Up! Ready to Go" over and over. Anyway, interesting, I thought.

I'll finish this post up later with pictures. My wife had car trouble coming down to pick me up in Indy, and we had to stay in a motel in Anderson overnight. We're currently waiting for the alternator to be replaced. I may not have much of a chance to say much else until Wednesday night. I have pictures and some other people's pictures and maybe some more details to work in.

Car's fixed ($639 plus a towing fee and a hotel room later), and happily we're now in Fort Wayne packing my mother-in-law up to move down closer to us. All in all, that fiasco could have gone worse. Things fell together pretty well considering our situation. Me on a bus an hour away from Indy where my wife was to pick me up, her in a car 35 miles from that pickup spot with a dead car and no husband there to help and on the fringe of cell phone range. Nurse Kelly looked up towing services in Anderson, IN for me, I picked one based on some reviews (Northwest Towing), and called and sent one to pick her up. They dropped the car off at Southwest Garage with a note and keys in the drop box, then dropped her off at a motel, where she got a room. A man from one of the other busses being dropped off in Indy as well took me, a complete stranger, up to the motel, and we were on the road by 1:00 this afternoon.
I will have to come up with another post to talk more about what I took from my experience ... this post was mostly to spew my "diary" of basically what I saw before I forgot. It's a busy week for me.

One last note. Does the black man above look afraid of all the white people around him? Do the white people around him look afraid of him? The crowd indeed was overwhelmingly white. But there was nobody at the gate, indeed, there were no gates .... turning anyone away because they weren't "white". This rally was free and open to anyone. Now.... look at the signs being carried by the protestors in the picture on the right. Just sayin'. There were Blacks and Asians and his Hispanics interspersed all over the crowd. They were a part of the crowd. Skin color does not matter. Ideals matter. Principles matter. Honor matters.

Friday, August 27, 2010

... for the Restoring Honor Rally. This should be fun. Too bad the wife can't go with me, but my noggin will be out there bobbin' in the crowd. Our local 9/12 leader ... just an average dude but an energetic and passionate one -- put together a bus like ... 6 weeks ago that filled up in about 2 weeks. He kept getting calls, and opened another bus. It filled. Then he opened a thrid. It filled.

Last Thursday night he opened another at 7:30pm. It filled in 2 hours.

Probably could've filled more -- but as it is, we have ~200 people heading out of Columbia to DC this afternoon.

I should be able to blog from the road. Not from the event itself, and I wouldn't even if I could. But there will be pictures and words forthcoming.

Just read about the Dr. Laura Schlessenger flap on Morgan's blog yesterday. I had this to say about it:

You know what? I think I will defend her on these grounds. If you can’t even quote what it is you’re talking about, it gets very difficult to discuss. This wasn’t her using the word to call someone else by that name. She was telling the lady what she hears from black comics and rappers all the time.

This has gotten absolutely ridiculous. When you can’t even utter a particular word quoting someone else based soley on your skin color, things have gotten out of hand.

But she’s white and conservative (same rules don’t necessarily apply if you’re a progressive liberal) — so she will be crucified.

I have another question. How do the people who want to see Dr. Schlessenger’s career end feel about the Ground Zero Mosque debate? I mean, to quote America’s favorite pretentious ground squirrel — “This is America, Dammit!”

Does ANYBODY see the double standard?

It’s a situation that mocks itself!

Dennis Miller was talking the other day about the subtitle of Michelle Malkin's book "Culture of Corruption: Obama's Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies" ... he said "and then people say 'oh, that's such an incindiary title ...' ... Geithner didn't pay taxes! We live in a time when you can point out an accuracy and be deemed to be incindiary ... he didn't pay his taxes!"

He also said "unfortunately for America, justice is now in the eye of Eric Holder". -- which is a beautiful gem. :-)

Bu seriously. Laura was making a point, repeating what she heard to make that point. It is an accuracy. She, in context, repeated what she hears from black comics and rappers daily. She didn't lie. She wasn't calling anybody anything. She just pointed out a fact to support an argument she was making in our supposedly post-racial society. She's white, so she's out. It's become a method for the Left to bully people whose opinions they don't like. And they don't apply their "laws" equally to all.

Apparently someone "firebombed" Russ Carnahan's campaign office the other day. Left Wing news outlets were quick to try to tie it to Tea Partiers (last paragraph), of course, without being able to come up with any actual, you know, evidence or anything.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

"I guess I'll never understand why having a Burlington Coat Factory on "hallowed ground" is anymore acceptable than having a community center. "

Well. It seems like we're missing a word here. A word which might shed some light on "why". Could have ... wait ... I'm getting something ... an "M" word? Yes, I'm definitely sensing a word beginning with the letter "M".

I had to respond. It's Stop an Echo Day, after all. Every day is Stop an Echo Day in my book:

"Could have something to do with the fact that a group of Burlington Coat Factory Employees didn't smother 3,000 people to death there in the name of the Burlington Coat Factory, but I'll admit that's just a wild guess."

Folks, tolerance and sensitivity is a two way street. When it only flows one way, the people from whom it flows figure it out eventually.

I really couldn't believe this when I heard it. Obama, speaking at a recent fundraiser:

Right now all around this country there are groups with harmless-sounding names like Americans for Prosperity, who are running millions of dollars of ads against Democratic candidates all across the country. And they don’t have to say who exactly the Americans for Prosperity are. You don’t know if it’s a foreign-controlled corporation. You don’t know if it’s a big oil company, or a big bank. You don’t know if it’s a insurance company that wants to see some of the provisions in health reform repealed because it’s good for their bottom line, even if it’s not good for the American people.

[insert sound of needle scraping across record]

Seriously????

Well you're the President of the United States. Why don't YOU know? Or do you, but you would prefer to cast aspersions by suggesting who it "might" be? Ah, the latter I see. The old class warfare and smoke and mirrors. See it doesn't matter if it is true. Just repeatedly insinuate. The press'll cover for ya.

Well right now there are groups out there with harmless sounding names like the Center for American Progress and MoveOn.Org ... running millions of dollars of ads against Republican candidates all across the country. And they don't have to say who exactly the Center for American Progress is. You don't know if it's some foreign-controlled political interest group. Could be some Greek guy who believes "The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States." . Might be some Workers Party of the World or something. Who knows? Could be TIDES. Or the APOLLO Alliance. Or the OSI.

But don't worry. Nothing to see there. Hmmm-mmmm. Those aren't the droids you're looking for we want you to look at.

Ah, the Mosque flap. Am I a big fan of the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque"? Well, no. I'm not. I recognize the significance.

On the flip side, that significance is purely symbolic. And while symbols can be powerful and I'm not saying this one wouldn't be ... it's still just a symbol.

Ultimately, of course, this is not about rights -- that is, I haven't seen any major player on the so-called "right" couch this in terms of whether or not they have a right to build what they want to on private property. Not Palin. Certainly not Beck. Can't think of a single thing I've heard that says that the government should stop them from building it there. I've heard it couched in terms of "should", what it probably means, and general displeasure. All of which it is perfectly legitimate to discuss.

I have heard calls for sensitivity and for Muslims to recognize what this looks like, whether it's true or not, and to reconsider and build it somewhere else. But from listening to the Left, one would think that because many on the right vocally oppose it, that they think the Government should step in and do something about it. You can bet your bippie that if the roles were reversed -- if radicalized Christians had murdered a bunch of people from a predominantly Muslim culture and then some Christians wanted to build a Christian Cultural Center right there, the howls from the Left would be deafening and many of them would expect the government to step in and stop it and come up with some rationalized excuse about affirmative action or "hate speech" or "cultural sensitivity" that sympathetic judging demands we bow to. But that's not what's happening.

One thing that concerns me is that, in the name of tolerance, the Western World is the side that ends up doing all of the bending and compromising. And the Muslim world sees that as evidence of the work and will of Allah, thus proving the superiority of their worldview. Tolerance is a feature of Western Culture (and a lot of Eastern Culture as well). But it is also a weakness when it comes to ideas and cultures hostile to them that demand concessions over, and over, and over, and over .... it ultimately will lead to the downfall of civilizations which practice it blindly.

One of the craziest things I've heard was a question from Her Highness Pelosi aboutwho is funding the opposition to the mosque. Fortunately, few if any are taking her seriously. I think it does betray a general tendency on the left to assume that if any position they disagree with gets too popular, it must be because sinister greedy cigar-smoking fat-cat haters in the Republican Party are behind it.

So, yeah. Actually, Pelosi is right about this part. It is a local zoning issue in New York City. Do I mind if it ends up costing the Democrats seats? Honestly? No. Would the Democrats seize on a similar opportunity to cast Republicans in a bad light? Absolutely. They have before and they will again. It's an unfortunate fact that we as a culture have gotten away from our principles and the court of public opinion is now more subject to emotion and shallow arguments than to reflection and the standards of the Constitution and the spirit in which it was written. And I'd like to see us get back to the latter. But we need time. If the Mosque flap buys us time.... frankly... yay. I don't want to see dishonesty about it, but ... we need time. Because Pelosi's right about another thing.

" .... as we go forward to an election about the future of our country and two of the first three questions are about a zoning issue in New York City."

We are going into yet another election about the future of our country, and I am opposed to what her side, the side with the majority of the power, has been, is, and intends to continue ... doing to drag the country into a future of larger government, less liberty, and less prosperity.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Blogger says it has a comment spam filter again. So I will see how well this goes. I really hate having moderation turned on, as it makes it more of a PITA to comment and I don't like having to "approve" comments. I've had no A-holes around here so far, only the Chinese spammers.

Looks like Blogger is able to detect them. Let's see what happens with moderation off.

Monday, August 16, 2010

As the Tea Partiers reminded us, it is not any person or family's seat. It is the people's seat.

How about no more Carnahans for a while, too? Or Clintons. Or Bushs.

Saw a Robin Carnahan ad this morning ... or more accurately an anti- Roy Blunt ad. It points out that Blunt voted for Wall Street deregulation many years back, and that he voted for the bailouts.

I don't have a big problem when someone votes for less government, though I'm not saying there should be no regulation of anything. In general I'm good with less. But this is why I voted for Chuck Perguson in the primary.

And is Robin saying that she would have voted against the bailouts? Ha! Obama voted for the bailouts.

Roy Blunt's anti-Carnahan ad is simple and will probably win out in the end. When Obama came here to campaign for her, he said "I need another vote!" And that if he had Robin Carnahan, he'd have that vote.

Sorry Big O. I think your support is poison this fall. But by all means, campaign away.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

I was out in Colorado, indeed, as jeffmon said, with my good friend and godchildren. Saw a couple of things while I was out there that gave me pause... one was this sign up at the Trail Ridge Road Visitor's Center in Rocky Mountain National Park (click to enlarge and read). First Amendment Expression Area. Right near the restrooms. Yeah, they have designated "first amendment" areas on some college campuses, too, so that they can appear to be upholding free speech (on a 40 square foot area) while everywhere else they suppress speech they don't like.

Now this sign in the park ... I know what it's about ... basically, they're saying you can pass out pamphlets here for whatever your cause is, so you don't have people setting up stations all over the park to get you to sign this and read that and listen to this when all you wanted to do was look at pretty mountain scenery. Fine. I get that. But why did they label it "First Amendment Expression Area"?

I think this is a dangerous trend. It gets people used to thinking that the First Amendment can be strictly curbed in any desired location .... much like the Second Amendment gets curbed in many places making it impractical to carry legally without constantly going back to your car or home (if it's even legal to have one in your parked car in many places ... like, for instance, where you work.). You have the right to say what you want, but only where we tell you you can. I pointed it out to the kids and told them that this was a bad sign regarding where America is headed. To further and further restrictions of our liberty.

The other thing I saw was Obama Branding. I think it was a bumper sticker commemorating the big Democratic Convention and coronation ceremony in Denver. It was the Big O "O" with a twist... this one with mountains in place of the sun. Something about the cult of leadership surrounding fascistic leaders.
Which reminded me of this PJTV video:

But other than that, it was a very nice vacation.

Incidentally, I was happy to practice my second amendment guaranteed right when I stopped to sleep at a rest stop on the way home. I slept soundly.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Kind of quiet around here with Philmon off getting high somewhere, probably in Colorado.

Some people are in a fizz because some of the money congress appropriated for union jobs was taken from the food stamp program. (And it's deficit-neutral, because we pay for a year's worth of stuff over ten years!) And it triggered my Welfare Rant #31.

Let's take two hypothetical neighbors. One is a hard working woman who, through a string of bad breaks, finds herself with no income. She looks for work, manages her affairs responsibly, and is obviously concerned that she cannot pay for her food and housing.

The other neighbor doesn't have a job either. She shoots out kids (from an endless string of 'suitors') like a Pez dispenser, throws trash on my property, doesn't look for work, and has loud parties until 3am most nights.

If both neighbors go look for public assistance, someone far away with no knowledge of their situations other than income and family size will hand them money taken from me (and others). Neighbor #1 will probably be ashamed of the whole thing and keep looking for work. Neighbor #2 comes to expect the money. "Where's my check?"

I can directly help either of these neighbors, or both. I could do more if my money wasn't confiscated in order to pay people like neighbor #2.

Thursday, August 05, 2010

Does this, as gay “marriage” advocates often say, remove some impediment to their preferred relationships?

No, it doesn’t. The fight isn’t about the freedom to love, since the law says nothing (nor should it) about who can love whom, a fundamentally private matter.

Does this change practicalities, such as the right to co-own a house or leave legacies to a gay lover?

No, it does not. Even in places that, like Wisconsin, have not redefined marriage, one may make wills, mortgages, adoptions, benefits arrangements and the like with whom one wants. For its part, California had civil unions carrying all the benefits of marriage.

Does this alter the ability to a couple to tell each other they’ll be faithful unto death, of one flesh, as married couples (ideally) do?

No. People have always been able to say and mean whatever they wish to each other. Again, the law has no say in such private matters.

Does this allow gay couples to be regarded as if they were married by friends? Does it allow acquaintances to think of long-time lovers as being married?

Again, no. People have long done this, and some churches have long been blessing such couples. That’s their right, of course. They require no judge to do so.

Does this mean that everyone else, including especially perfect strangers, must also now grant gay relationships the same unique and special public respect that until now society has always and everywhere reserved for married couples?

Yes, it does. That’s what the decision was exactly about: Commanding society to view homosexual relationships with a favor that society has been unwilling to grant.

Don’t take my word: As the New York Times explained it, gay-rights activists have increasingly sought same-sex marriage not simply to “lessen discrimination” but also as “an emotional indicator of legitimacy.” The paper quoted one activist as saying that to not redefined marriage “is to deny respect for the essence of who we are as gay people.”

My own opinons on the subject are well documented here. It's about the word, not the right to do as they please -- nothing less.

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

We've got the Arch. And the St. Louis Cardinals. And I guess Branson now. That's about all people on the Left Coasts knew about Missouri if they knew that much

Well they know something else now. They know we REALLY don't think the Federal Government has any business forcing us to buy a product (or pay a fine) just to exist as an American.

They know it 71%-29%.
Our Capitol City was named after Thomas Jefferson. Lewis and Clark embarked from here to discover points beyond without any health insurance at all. Or food stamps. They didn't have to license their boat or even pay taxes on it every year. They carried guns with them and used them without a permit. Harry Truman, for whom the buck stopped ... from here. A place called "Independence". We also have towns named "Useful" and "Freedom" and "Liberty".

Now of course the left pundits will tell you that voters were confused, or that the Dems weren't motivated to vote on it, that it doesn't really represent what the people want ... or, if you're that dude from California, that it doesn't matter because the Federal Government can pretty much do whatever it wants. (hence 71%-29% is meaningless but Obama's 52.5%-47.5% win was a "landslide" and a mandate for "Change").

Now a lot of people think the Tea Party is about a lot of stuff that it's not about. They've been fed the lines over and over that it's about racism, hating a black president, theocracy, ignorance, uneducated people who don't know what's good for them, people duped by big business and moneyed interests ... "astroturf".

None of that. This is what it's about at its core. What Congressman Stark said. The current powers that be -- and this has been building the whole 20th century ... think that central planning is the answer. That We the People should be subjected by law to "expert" opinion. There are so many reasons this is wrong that one can't begin to cover it in a blog post. I'd start by reading Bastiat and Hayek if you really want to understand what made America different, and why that's a good thing.

I hope people in the other 17 states that have similar initiatives to Missouri Proposition C will take heart. The so-called "supremacy" clause aside, this sends a powerful message to Washington. And what Congress passes, Congress can repeal. They are subject to the Constitution and to us, not us to them and just screw the Constitution because it means whatever they need it to mean today to enact their agenda.